The present disclosure relates, in general, to the manufacture of packaging, or containers, that may be readily used to transport product and/or display the product contents of the containers following delivery to a customer. Such packaging or containers may be considered to be dual use containers.
Suppliers of containers are being encouraged by retailers to supply more containers that are constructed to be dual purpose. Thus, such containers need to first be configured to be able to be shipped and carry product safely to a store, and second, need to arrive in a display-ready condition or configured to be easily converted, without any knives or tools, into a display-ready condition, such as a display tray, that can then be placed on a display stand, a rack, or a shelf. The challenge is using the minimum possible amount of materials and remaining cost effective, especially when the container supplier or manufacturer may be currently utilizing just a standard brown box shipping container.
As suggested above, various types of containers are conventionally provided for storing product in and transporting product to a retail environment for ultimate display to prospective customers, such as consumers. As is known in the packaging industry, such containers can be configured and transported to manufacturing and/or retail environments for display in a knock-down form, that is, in a flattened condition known as a pre-assembly. Panels of the flattened pre-assembly are glued, stapled or otherwise affixed or joined together such that the panels are substantially configured to be in a pre-assembled state. In such a pre-assembled or knock-down state, the personnel ultimately assembling or erecting the container have been known to need to manually open, or spread apart selected panels of the container pre-assembly and manually affix two or more of the panels together into an assembled condition of the container. Such final assembly of the container thus requires a good deal of manual labor and is performed prior to loading a selected product into the container. Product may be placed into the resulting assembled container by either the product manufacturer, the wholesaler, or the retailer. After the product is loaded into the container, the container may either be ready for shipment and/or for display or may have portions of the container needing to be removed in order to be ready for display.
The container may have a top that is to be closed and sealed by sequentially overlapping the top panels or by a different overlapping of the top panels along with the use of tape or glue, for example, to adhere selective top panels to each other. This usually requires additional manual labor.
Based on the above, it would be advantageous if the container pre-assembly, and thus the container itself, could be manufactured using less material and constructed such that assembling or erecting the ultimate container would be essentially automatic using little or no manual labor and making the entire process simpler and easier.
Thus, the present disclosure relates to a dual use display tray/container pre-assembly and a resulting dual use display tray/container, as well as a method for manufacturing such a container pre-assembly and container wherein less material is used and erection of the container from the pre-assembly occurs automatically by using automatic erector equipment that simply opens the panels of the pre-assembly and seals the bottom panels and, if appropriate, any top panels.
The pre-assembly, and thus the container, are constructed from either a single blank or a plurality of blanks, each blank having a plurality of panels. Embodiments according to the present disclosure that are constructed from a plurality of blanks include, for example, a primary blank and a supplementary blank.
In accordance with illustrated embodiments of the present disclosure, a method of manufacturing a container and the resulting container, and a method of manufacturing a container pre-assembly and the resulting container pre-assembly, as well as the use of a single blank or a plurality of blanks that comprise the pre-assembly and the container, are disclosed herein. When the methods and the blank or blanks are utilized in accordance with the present disclosure, they result in the formation of container pre-assemblies by automatic erector, or pre-assembly formation, equipment. Such pre-assemblies are configured to be set-up or opened or erected into a container using automatic container-erector equipment such that upon the erection of the container, divider panels and other panels of a pre-assembly cooperate to automatically form a plurality of cells within an interior of the erected container and also may form a plurality of interior and exterior access windows. The cells are configured to store and display product and the exterior access windows provide one-, two-, or three-sided external access to those interior cells. The interior access windows provide internal access to those interior cells. Embodiments of the present disclosure may include an option, via perforations in panels, to provide none or one or more interior and/or exterior access windows.
The pre-assembly and container embodiments of the present disclosure provide a dual use display tray/container having at least the following key advantageous features: (1) a plurality of cells created by divider panels within the container for storing and displaying product, and the cells may be substantially equal in dimension; (2) one-, two-, or three-sided external access via container side panels to the product displayed/stored in the cells; (3) auto-erection of the pre-assembly into the display tray/container, resulting in ease of assembly and a minimum amount or virtual elimination of manual labor, the auto-erection being made possible by strategic placement of glue points that fix or adhere or secure selective panels of the container to each other thereby making it possible for automatic erector equipment to erect the container from the pre-assembly; (4) additional stacking strength of the assembled containers based upon the glue point placements that establish the divider panel connections and locations relative to other divider panels and/or to other panels, such as the side panels, of the container; (5) improved anti-nesting qualities based upon the location of the divider panels; and, (6) dual use of the container based upon the configuration of the container panels to create a plurality of cells for both shipping and displaying the product inside the container.
Referring to the key features noted above and the accompanying drawings (see FIGS. 1-52), embodiments 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 of the present disclosure include the key feature of a plurality of divider panels (see panels B, O, Q in FIGS. 1-42 of embodiments 100-400 and panels B, ND, PD in FIGS. 43-52 of embodiment 500, the divider panels cooperate with each other and/or with the side and bottom panels of the container to create a plurality of cells ZC within the interior of the container. In each of the embodiments, one or more of the divider panels may be secured at both ends (thus, such divider panels are considered to be “fixed”) and one or more of the divider panels may be considered to be at least partially floating (or, as at least partially fixed—but simply identified as “floating”), that is, secured at one end and not secured at the other end. This is shown, for example, in FIGS. 10 and 11 where divider panel O is at least partially floating because panel N is not secured to divider panel B while divider panel Q is considered to be fixed via panel R being secured to divider panel B. It is further noted that one end of divider panel B is secured via panel A being secured to panel E and another end of divider panel B is secured to panels C and G. The adhering, securing or fixing of the panels occurs, for example, via glue points Y.
Another of the key features relates to the plurality of external access windows ZE which are created in the dual use display trays/containers of embodiments 100, 200, 300 and 500 (without removable top panels), as shown in FIGS. 10, 21, 30 and 51, and embodiment 400 as shown in FIG. 40 (with removable top panels) that provide three-sided external access to product displayed or stored in cells ZC of the container.
Another of the key features relates to the location of the means for securing, adhering, or fixing one panel to another. The fixing means may be, for example, gluing, as shown herein, or its equivalent. Those gluing or adhering points, are shown, for example, as glue points (Y). For panels that are glued together, the glue points (Y) may be on either or both of the respective panels to be secured to one another. The location of the glue points (Y) relative to the divider panels determines whether a particular divider panel is considered to be fixed or is considered to be at least partially floating. The word “floating” may be used herein to mean “at least partially floating”.
Regarding the key features of improved stacking strength, improved anti-nesting qualities, and dual use capability, these features are created by a combination of the location of the divider panels (internally to the container), the location of the glue points Y joining the divider panels together and/or to other panels of the container, the creation of the plurality of cells by cooperation of the divider panels and other panels of the container, and the creation of cut-outs, or openings, or access windows ZI, ZE, in the divider and side panels of the container, respectively, the external access windows ZE providing, for example, at least one-sided external access to product in the cells ZC. The erected container is thus configured for dual use—as a display tray and shipping container, as shown in the embodiments 100-500 of FIGS. 1-52. Embodiment 400 includes a plurality of divider panels and cells but also includes a plurality of removable top panels forming a top for the container, as well as removable portions of the divider and side panels to form the internal ZI and external ZE access windows. Embodiment 400 is thus initially configured as a closed-top dual use tray/container which includes perforated sections of top and side panels enabling the removal of top panels and portions of the side panels to provide a dual use display tray with an open top and at least one-sided access to the plurality of internal cells ZC.
A more complete understanding of the embodiments of the present disclosure and the utility thereof may be acquired by referring to the following in consideration of the accompanying drawings and the description of the embodiments. Generally, in the drawings and the description, like reference numbers or letters indicate like features.
In the FIGS. 1-52, the solid lines shown separating or connecting various panels, end areas, panel portions, and tabs may be considered as fold lines, score lines, and/or hinge lines or edges. Perforated lines are shown as broken or dashed lines.
Other aspects of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following descriptions when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.